Internet of Things (M2M) is a network that connects, by using information sensing devices, all articles to the Internet to implement intelligent recognition and management. Combined with the Internet, it can implement remote sensing and control of all the articles, thereby generating a production and living system that is more intelligent.
A present cellular communications network is designed for conventional mobile terminals. Using a Long Term Evolution (LTE) system as an example, a length of a cell radio network temporary identifier (C-RNTI) in the present LTE system is 16 bits, and the identifier is used to distinguish and schedule user device, that a present cell can identify a maximum of 65536 (16th power of 2) users at the same time.
In some applications of M2M, for example, smart metering, a density of users of smart metering may be far greater than a density of people, and a single cell even needs to support 100,000 or even more users. Therefore, an existing radio network temporary identifier (RNTI) cannot satisfy a requirement of M2M for multiple services.